The YouTube Awards Want You to Lighten Up

In case you missed it, which you certainly may have, the first ever YouTube awards happened last night. And by "happened," we mean unraveled, in the most bizarre, chaotic, and unruly way possible.

Viewable, naturally, only via YouTube live stream, the ceremony kicked off with a requisite Kia hamster ad and launched into a live music video by Arcade Fire starring mumblecore queen Greta Gerwig and directed by Spike Jonze, who was also the director for the whole evening. Next up was a montage by YouTube sensation CDZA, spanning the Google video service's MTV-killing history of musical moments and culminating appropriately in the ubiquitous Ylvis hit "The Fox." Hosted by perennial dork savant Jason Schwartzman and wild-haired Montana madman comedian Reggie Watts, who were admittedly unscripted and had to overcome "obstacles" in order to get through the evening, including holding screaming babies, digging through cakes, and being painted and doused with chalk powder, things careened downhill, for the most part, from there.

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Lady Gaga, who managed not to get any awards, a testament to the power of a truly democratic voting process, performed a teary rendition of her new single "Dope," leaving us, as usual, confused as to whether it was high art — perhaps a commentary on Miley Cyrus's much talked-about crying during her "Wrecking Ball" performances and name-dropping of MDMA — or simply weird for weird, and publicity's, sake, like the fake teeth she chose to wear instead of pants.

This type of "maybe it's brilliant and I just don't get it" mystique haunted the evening. Was it odd genius, some next-level shit from the minds of Spike Jonze and Vice, who produced it? Or was it the biggest, and likely most expensive, shitshow ever broadcast? There were certainly inspired, or at least ambitious, moments: Response of the Year award winner Lindsey Stirling jet-packing her way through a miniature city and green-screened storm while performing her song "Crystallize"; the Lena Dunham-penned Choose Your Own Adventureskit set to Avicii's "Hey Brother," whose premise and dialogue wound up being, probably not unintentionally, a metaphor for the entire evening and whose crowdsourced outcome speaks cultural volumes; the psychedelic color and light explosion live-video for M.I.A'.s "Come Walk with Me," containing yet another subversive bit of pop commentary when the camera swooped in on hula-hooping dancers (probably) pretending to be engrossed in their glowing iPhones; the hosts themselves jamming out between presentations; and, of course, Eminem, who came out and laid down a solid yet straightforward performance of "Rap God," which, to his credit and SNL honcho Lorne Michael's dismay, didn't appear to be lip-synched.

Unfortunately, these moments of clarity were clouded. Production issues, which included widespread glitches during Tyler the Creator and Earl Sweatshirt's performance, were rife. Much of the content, including banal-disguised-as-edgy comments such as YouTube Breakthrough award winner Macklemore shouting out his mushroom dealer, Arcade Fire's Win Butler crashing some Taylor Swift fans' acceptance of her Phenomenon award to dredge up the oh-so-tired Kanye VMA thing again, and a stale Michael Cera skit, came across as weak and trying way too hard, certainly not the sort of sly, eccentric-but-brilliant things one would expect from the level of talent involved, especially considering the whatever-happens-happens leeway supposedly given.

As a testament to YouTube's power, despite relatively scant viewership — the VMAs, low man on the award-show totem pole, had 10 million to their 200,000 peak — the interactive voting for award winners was enormous, with 60 million total participants. This led to at least one upset you wouldn't find at your standard-fare, industry-insider awards, with K-pop Girls' Generation (you're forgiven for saying "who?" here) beating out Miley, Bieber, Gaga, and even their compatriot, Gangnam Styler Psy, for Video of the Year, to a resounding level of attendee indifference, or at least muted confusion.

There are a lot of polarizing postulations happening across the web today, analysis of whether the YouTube Awards were a freakish failure or avant garde success story by self-anointed experts of all kinds, and it may well be that this is where their true success is evident. Sure, they may have been, at times, an almost unwatchable hot mess. But at the core of the whole event, however ridiculous and contrived-seeming, was a broader, albeit subconscious, message: We need to stop taking things so damn seriously, especially things that are supposed to be fun, like music and parties, loosen up a bit, and go with the flow. Even when, ultimately, it doesn't necessarily go anywhere. As Ernest's granddaughter and existentially blissed-out raver chick Dree Hemingway pointed out during the Dunham skit, "I bet you hate babies and cake and pillows. Cheer the fk up!"